Review: BaByliss Curl Secret Styler

Over the last few months I have been reading online about the BaByliss Pro Perfect Curl, it looked like an incredible tool for curling the hair - it literally would suck a strand of hair into the barrel and "hey presto" curly hair!  I really wanted the Pro Perfect Curl but there were two obstacles, firstly the price - it was retailing at approximately £170 depending on where you bought it from, Ouch!  The second was it was selling out everywhere so even if I had decided to go for it, I wouldn't have been able to find anywhere stocking it!

I sat back and hoped that it would become more widely available (and cheaper!) in time and last month I read that BaByliss were bring out a consumer version!!  Cue major excitment from me!  The only differences I have been told between the two products are that the consumer version is lighter, has two heat settings as opposed to three and automatically alternates the curl direction.  So, if anything it is more user friendly I think.

It is priced at £119.99 and last week I ordered it online......I had to wait a whole weekend for it to be delivered but yesterday it finally arrived!

Please excuse the photos, I took them late last night when the sky had gone black before a thunderstorm so the light at home was really bad!  I was going to take new photos later but decided I couldn't wait to share my thoughts with you (I am like an overexcited child about this product!)

I should have said that this version is called Curl Secret!

 Above is some information that is printed on the box. 

And here it is, in all its glory:

I had to have a little go of this last night even though I was only going to bed afterwards!  I was really impressed by how easy it was to use, the main thing to remember are to keep one side of the Curl Secret facing your head (its easy to remember which side as they have written on it to remind you).  Apart from that you choose your heat and time settings from those below:

• Setting 8 (8 seconds = 3 beeps) - for loose waves

• Setting 10 (10 seconds = 4 beeps) - for soft curls

• Setting 12 (12 seconds = 5 beeps) - for more defined curls

There are two heat settings and if your hair is fine and/or coloured you would use the cooler setting and if your hair is thick or coarse you would use the hotter setting.

I took small sections of my hair, probably no bigger than 3cm in width and made sure it was a nice neat section so there was no tangling and then I clamped the barrel about half way down my hair (you just clamp it where you want the curl to begin), once the barrel closes, the hair disappears and then I waited for the four beeps.  After the fourth beep I would release and that piece of hair was curly!  I used the lower heat setting and Setting 8 and I would say that I got a soft curl. 

After using this for a while I found the plastic surrounding where the hair is curled gets quite hot (I didn't think it would) but BaByliss do supply a heat mat which I will definitely make use of.

The thing that surprised me most was that the styler looks quite large in a lot of photo and even in video footage I've seen but when I took it out of the box I thought it seemed really small and I also find it quite light.  I took a photo of me holding it so you can see what I mean:

Lastly I know this shouldn't matter but I like the colour too!!

When I style my hair properly with this I will take a before and after photo so you can see the results.  My first impressions are all good, it seems really easy to use, I felt like I was getting the hang of it after just five minutes playing around with it yesterday.  I am hopefully that after a couple more goes I will be really getting the hang of it.  My mind goes back to when I first got BaByliss Big Hair and I got into a bit of a mess the first time I used that but now I could use it with my eyes closed so I am hoping it will be similar with Curl Secret.

Please let me know if any of you have bought this or are thinking of treating yourself!

Curl Secret cost me £119.99 at Boots.com